"Okay. Then...I can talk. Ask me something.""Okay." He laughs shakily in my ear. "Why is your heart racing Tris?"I cringe and say, "Well, I...I barely know you. I barely know you and I'm crammed up against you in a box, Four, what do you think?"..."Maybe you were cut out for Candor," he says, "because you're a terrible liar."
"Yeah, well," I say, "I left Abnegation because I wasn't selfless enough, no matter how hard I tried to be.""That's not entirely true." He smiles at me. "That girl who let someone throw knives at her to spare a friend, who hit my dad with a belt to protect me-that selfless girl, that's not you?"..."You've been paying close attention, haven't you?""I like to observe people/""Maybe you were cut out for Candor, Four, because you're a terrible liar."
"Fear doesn't shut you down; it wakes you up. I've seen it. It's fascinating." He releases me but doesn't pull away, his hand grazing my jaw, my neck. "Sometimes I just...want to see it again. Want to see you awake."
"We've all started to put down the virtues of the other factions in the process of bolstering our own. I don't want to do that. I want to be brave, and selfless, and smart, and kind, and honest." He clears his throat. "I continually struggle with kindness."
"Moths," repeats Will. "You're afraid of moths?" "Not just a cloud of moths," she says, "like...a swarm of them. Everywhere. All those wings and legs and..." She shudders and shakes her head."Terrifying," Will says with mock seriousness. "That's my girl. Tough as cotton balls.""Oh, Shut up."
"Can you be a girl for a few seconds?""I'm always a girl" I frown."You know what I mean. Like a silly, annoying girl"I twirl my hair around my finger. "Kay."
"Four flips the gun in this hand, presses the barrel to Peter's forehead, and clicks a bullet into place. Peter freezes with his lips parted, the yawn dead in his mouth. "Wake. Up," Four snaps. "You are holding a loaded gun, you idiot. Act like it."
"We could visit him," suggests Will. "But what would we say? 'I didn't know you that well, but I'm sorry you got stabbed in the eye'?"
"That is death - shifting from "is" to "was."
"...we have something they want. Valuing knowledge above all else results in a lust for power, and that leads men into dark and empty places. We should be thankful that we know better."
"I have to face the fear. I have to take control of the situation and find a way to make it less frightening."
"I clench my teeth as tears come. I am fed up. I am fed up with tears and weakness. But there isn't much I can do to stop them. ~ 'Tris"
"It will be difficult to break the habits of thinking Abnegation instilled in me, like tugging a single thread from a complex work of embroidery. But I will find new habits, new thoughts, new rules. I will become something else."
"I tell myself, as sternly as possible, that is how things work here. We do dangerous things and people die. People die, and we move on to the next dangerous thing. The sooner that lesson sinks in, the better chance I have at surviving initiation."
"Human reason can excuse any evil."
"I have never been carried around by a large boy, or laughed until my stomach hurt at the dinner table, or listened to the clamor of a hundred people all talking at once. Peace is restrained; this is free."
"It isn’t right to wish pain on other people just because they hurt me first."
"Hearing him talk about his mother, about his intact family, makes my chest hurt for a second, like someone pierced it with a needle."
"I wish I could tell him that we’re going through the same thing. I wish I could speak to him like I want to instead of like I’m supposed to. But the idea of admitting that I need help is too much to bear, so I turn away."
"I feel something hot and violent writhing in my stomach. I want to hurt them. I stare at my eyes in the mirror. I want so, so I will."
"Scrubbing the floor when no one else wanted to was something that my mother would have done. If I can't be with her, the least I can do is act like her sometimes."
"There is power in controlling something that can do so much damage-in controlling something, period."
"You won’t shoot me.""People tend to overestimate my character," I say quietly. "They think that because I’m small, or a girl, or a Stiff, I can’t possibly be cruel. But they’re wrong."
"I have realized that part of being Dauntless is being willing to make things more difficult for yourself in order to be self-sufficient. There's nothing especially brave about wandering dark streets with no flashlight, but we are not supposed to need help, even from light. We are supposed to be capable of anything. I like that. Because there might come a day when there is no flashlight, there is no gun, there is no guiding hand. And I want to be ready."
"We believe in bravery. We believe in taking action. We believe in freedom from fear and in acquiring the skills to force the bad out of our world so that the good can prosper and thrive. If you also believe in those things, we welcome you."